1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-functional optical film, a manufacturing method thereof, and a substrate structure and a display panel using the optical film, such that a plurality of the optical films with multiple functions can be manufactured in a simplified manufacturing process. Said optical films are randomly combined by any patterned and non-patterned liquid crystal films.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, an optical film of a display panel is usually manufactured through an adhering process. In other words, various optical films are adhered to a substrate layer by layer through an adhesion material. Moreover, additional passivation layers are required to protect the optical films. Afterwards, the substrate having a plurality of the optical films is separately adhered to the display panel. In the conventional manufacturing method, the adhesion material is required by each of the optical films, and the optical films necessitate a support from the substrate and protection of the passivation layer, thus leading to high manufacturing costs of the optical films and a negative impact on the optical characteristics of the optical films. Moreover, an excessive thickness of each of the optical films manufactured by said conventional method can be expected.
As regards conventional patterned compensation films adopted by three-dimensional display panels or semi-transmissive display panels, a non-adhering method of forming the patterned compensation films has been proposed. However, as a plurality of the optical films is to be formed by integrating other films such as polarizing films, an alignment layer sandwiched between every two of the liquid crystal layers is required to specifically align the liquid crystal layers, for the patterned compensation films and the polarizing films in use are liquid crystal material layers. Due to the requirement of an additional alignment layer disposed between every two of the liquid crystal layers, the process of manufacturing the optical films remains complicated, and a thickness of each optical film cannot be effectively reduced.
On the other hand, in the method of manufacturing the conventional patterned compensation film, a defined pattern layer composed of photoresist material is formed on the alignment layer, and the liquid crystal layer is then formed on the defined pattern layer to form the compensation film. Said method has the pitfall of a lower adhesion at the interface and the boundary between the photoresist material and liquid crystals because of the difference therebetween. Moreover, if the photoresist material is used as the defined pattern layer, only an aligned patterned compensation film or an unaligned patterned compensation film may be defined, restricting the application of the patterned compensation films.